More than 10 years ago, a Japanese ``udon'' noodle shop opened in Seoul using ingredients directly imported from Japan. It had a Japanese-style lantern and a short curtain with the shop name hanging at the entrance. The food was served with tableware and chopsticks made in Japan. The noodles tasted just as good as if they were served in Japan. Although the restaurant was enjoying good business, it was soon forced to close down because of a legal reason.

The restaurant was subject to a kind of social punishment by critics who accused it of ``needlessly spreading the smell of Japanese food.'' In other words, it was a victim of South Korean ``national sentiment.''

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) has an ambiguous term that means ``national sentiment.'' When it is used with regard to Japan, it is an irrational expression that describes the delicate emotions of South Koreans who are ``not yet ready to forgive Japan.'' What is important here is that the emphasis is on the words ``not yet'' and not on ``ready to forgive Japan.''

People who argued against showing Japanese films before South Korea lifted a ban on Japanese popular culture also used the term to justify their claim. They said South Korean ``national sentiment has yet to tolerate Japanese films.''

Even now, Japanese singers are only allowed to sing Japanese songs in large venues that can accommodate thousands of people. However, Japanese songs are banned in numerous small halls across the country. Critics say it is ``intolerable from the viewpoint of national sentiment'' that Japanese songs are sung in small venues. Such logic makes no sense.

Recently, however, such anti-Japanese national sentiment is weakening. Japanese signboards are increasing in Seoul. Formerly, the same signs would have been taken down by legal authorities. The increase in Japanese signs is a remarkable change that occurred after the lifting of the ban on popular Japanese culture.

I wish to cite the following interesting example to illustrate the change in South Korean national sentiment toward Japan. At one time, instead of the traditional Korean words of greeting ``How are you?'' college students took to using the Japanese phrase of the same meaning ``Ogenki desuka?'' It is the line Japanese actress Miho Nakayama shouted to a mountain covered with snow in the Japanese film ``Love Letter,'' which became a hit in South Korea. Even South Korean youths who don't even know the first thing about the Japanese language came to understand the phrase ``Ogenki desuka?''

A popular singer who appeared on a television talk show repeatedly uttered the phrase ``Ogenki desuka?'' Such behavior would have been beyond imagination a few years ago. It was only a few years ago that a college student was hit in the face by an elderly person because the student was speaking Japanese, despite the fact that the student was enrolled in a Japanese-language course.

Even under such circumstances, however, Seoul now not only has a restaurant that serves tonkatsu (Japanese-style fried pork cutlet) but also one that specializes in ``distinctly Japanese'' donburi (bowls of rice served with various toppings). Some stores have signboards written in hiragana or even containing the Japanese word ``izakaya'' (tavern). I even found a sign with the message ``welcome'' written in Japanese in a tiny coffee shop in a residential area that few Japanese tourists are likely to visit.

Young people are setting the trend for Japanese culture to spread from the places they frequent and the way they dress. Is it not possible to see this trend as a kind of friendship index between South Korea and Japan?

How things have changed between the two countries from a year ago, when the controversy over a Japanese history textbook was raging. It seems that never before in recent years have things been so quiet as they are now, with no pending ``problems'' between the two countries. A major event to show diversified Japanese culture is planned in South Korea. An exhibition of national treasure-class cultural properties in the collections of South Korean and Japanese national museums is also under way.

The ``Harry Potter'' boom that has taken the world by storm has also hit Japan and South Korea, where movie theaters and bookstores are packed with fans. The most serious abuse of modernism is the way it led people to seek a Western-centered ``single culture.'' However, recently, as symbolized by the Internet, I feel that the world as a whole is about to converge into a single cultural bloc. Watching the European Union united by the euro also gives me the same impression that the world is becoming one.

But once we turn our eyes to Asia, we still see it divided into separate blocs. It took a very long time for restaurants with Japanese signs to appear in Seoul. I sincerely hope that 2002 World Cup soccer that the two countries will jointly host can serve as a small but significant first step toward bringing Asia together as one.

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Han Soo San is a writer and professor at Sejong University in Seoul.